Why Fish Oil?

Updated July 2010

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Whatever you put into your body, do so at your own risk. All I intend to describe is what I do and why I do it. I consume 13500 milligrams (13.5 g) of Omega-3 fatty acids via fish oil daily.  I recommend the same for most adults.  I do not take any other dietary supplements or multi-vitamins, as a diet rich in lean meat and fresh fruits and vegetables provides all the remaining nutrition my body needs.  Dr. Barry Sears said of fish oil, “It’s as close to a miracle drug as I’ll ever see in my lifetime.” I agree.  Below is a very concise explanation of why.  If you just want to take my word for it (something I don’t recommend) then skip to the section titled “How Much Fish Oil Should I Take?” If you wish to read a more exhaustive explanation I recommend the Wikipedia articles on omega-3 fatty acids and fish oil, or reading the references I have linked.

Fish oil, which includes Cod-liver oil, is a significant source of the Omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA.  These fatty acids have numerous, documented health benefits: improved cholesterol balance, reduced inflammation, increased blood flow, reduced rates of heart disease and atherosclerosis, better immune system function, improved brain function, improvement in psychiatric disorders, and prevention of cancers (particularly breast, colon, and prostate).  Improved blood flow and reduced inflammation are of particular interest to athletes.  This enables an athlete to train harder and recover quicker.

Even for the non-athlete, the benefits of fish oil are profound.  Including the benefits listed above, studies have shown that fish oil can cause weight loss and improved body composition even when supplementing a very poor diet.  I advise everyone to eat a diet rich in lean meat, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, with as little starch and refined sugar as possible. However, if you simply refuse to change your diet then I highly recommend you take fish oil.  It’s super easy and will go a long way towards counteracting those McDonald’s extra value meals.

The only significant negative effect of fish oil is that when taken in large doses and combined with drugs like aspirin, it can cause increased bleeding.  This doesn’t mean you will bleed out from a paper cut, but it could be significant if you incurred a life-threatening injury.  This would probably only happen in rare circumstances where you take an extremely large dose and combine that with an anti-coagulant like Aspirin and suffer life-threatening bleeding. I think the benefits far outweigh the risks, but that’s a decision you must make for yourself.

How Much Fish Oil Should I Take?

First, ignore the recommended dosage on the fish oil bottle. Most Americans consume enough Omega-6 fatty acids that the recommended dosage on the bottle would be laughably low in keeping your Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio in check, which is one of our primary goals of supplementing fish oil. Next, the amount of fish oil you take isn’t nearly as important as the amount of Omega-3 (O3) fatty acids in that fish oil. We are just taking the fish oil for the O3′s, so it makes sense to pay attention to the O3 content of your fish oil. This varies wildly by brand and quality. You’re looking for the EPA and DHA content of the fish oil. This will be listed on the back label. To make things simple, total the milligrams of EPA and DHA to get a single amount of O3 content. So what’s a good number? I’ve seen fish oil from Wal-Mart that has less than 200 mg total per capsule. That’s pretty poor. Most quality fish oil will have 300-600 mg per capsule. That’s pretty good. Anything over 600 mg per capsule is pretty potent stuff. I use Member’s Mark triple strength fish oil from Sam’s Club. After tax it is just less than $20 for a bottle of 150 capsules. Each capsule contains 1400 mg (1.4 g) of fish oil and 900 mg combined EPA and DHA Omega-3 fatty acids. Based on recommendations from other CrossFit athletes and my own experimentation, I currently take 15 capsules per day, each with 900 mg of combined O3 content. I consume the capsules in equal doses at three times throughout the day. That works out to 13500  milligrams (13.5 g) of O3 per day. That is not the same as milligrams of fish oil. Each capsule is 1400 milligrams of fish oil, so I am taking 21000 mg (21 g) of fish oil to get 13500 mg (13.5 g) of Omega-3 fatty acids. The O3 content is what’s important, not the fish oil itself. So if you take my dosage as a recommendation, and there’s no scientific reason you should, you could calculate it as follows:

Body Weight (lbs) * 75 = milligrams of Omega-3 fatty acids daily

If you’re not ready to jump into consuming that much fish oil, that’s OK. I didn’t start out taking that much daily. If you’re apprehensive then just start with 3-5 capsules daily. Once you’ve seen its positive effects then you may want to consider taking more, perhaps in accordance with the above equation.

More Evidence

Below is a 15-minute video by Barry Sears on the benefits of fish oil, including his results treating Manuel Uribe.  Manuel was the heaviest man on earth at over 1200 pounds.  Eighteen months after adhering to a Zone diet and supplementing with extremely high doses of fish oil he had lost 400 pounds and had the blood chemistry and resting heart rate of a well-trained athlete.  He currently continues his multi-year path to a normal body weight using the Zone and fish oil.  Dr. Sears begins discussing fish oil about 3 minutes into the video.

Video links:

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• iPhone/iPod